SDDS

IMF’s Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS)

O

n 1st May 2015, (1/5/15), Seychelles graduated to the IMFs SDDS to become the 64th country subscribing to this initiative and the third country in sub-Saharan Africa after South Africa and Mauritius.

It is to be noted that prior to graduating to the SDDS, Seychelles participated in the IMFs General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) and officially became the 88th member of the IMFs GDDS on 18th December 2006. Seychelles is the 13th country to graduate to the SDDS from the GDDS.

What is the SDDS?

The Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) is an IMF initiative established in 1996 to guide countries that have or are seeking access to capital markets to disseminate key data so that users in general, and financial market participants in particular, have adequate information to assess the economic situations of individual countries.

It is a global benchmark for disseminating macroeconomic data to the public. As the name indicates, the SDDS is a standard with precise requirements on data coverage, and adherence implies meeting the four criteria in dissemination which are frequency, periodicity, timeliness, transparency and quality and consistency.

Why the SDDS?

Data dissemination standards are important because they help enhance the availability of timely and comprehensive statistics, which contributes to the design and monitoring of sound macroeconomic policies and the improved functioning of financial markets. Subscription to the SDDS provides investors with up-to-date data that are frequent, timely and accessible. This facilitates the country’s access – for both the public and private sector - to international capital markets, potentially implying higher levels of foreign investment.

The four dimensions of the SDDS

Countries that subscribe to the SDDS agree to follow good practices in four areas or SDDS dimensions:

coverage, periodicity, and timeliness of data;

public access to the data;

data integrity; and

data quality.

Requirements of the SDDS

A country adhering to SDDS has to meet certain criteria. The requirements are as follows:

(i)Dissemination of the economic and financial data of the country on the National Summary Data Page (NSDP) which is hosted on a national web page and is hyperlinked with the IMF's Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board (DSBB). The NSDP is updated according to an Advance Release Calendar (ARC).

(ii)Dissemination of the ARC on a national webpage to be hyperlinked with the IMF website.

(iii)Detailed information about the statistical practices, or metadata, (description about data) in a prescribed IMF format of the SDDS data categories, for dissemination on the DSBB.

(iv)Pursuance of good practice, (as described in the IMF Data Quality Assessment Framework) with respect to integrity, methodological soundness, accuracy, reliability, serviceability and accessibility aspects of data.

Components of the SDDS

There are four major components of type of data disseminated by the SDDS and they are all part of economic statistics and financial data, except a last addendum item on population.

SECTOR

DATA CATEGORY

DATA SOURCE

1

REAL

1

National Accounts

National Bureau of Statistics

2

Production Index

National Bureau of Statistics

3

Labour Market: Employment

National Bureau of Statistics

4

Labour Market: Unemployment

National Bureau of Statistics

5

Labour Market: Wages/Earnings

National Bureau of Statistics

6

Price Index: Consumer Prices

National Bureau of Statistics

7

Price Index: Producer Prices

National Bureau of Statistics

2

FISCAL

8

General Government or Public Sector Operations

Ministry of Finance, Trade & Economic Planning

9

Central Government Operations

Ministry of Finance, Trade & Economic Planning

10

Central Government Debt

Ministry of Finance, Trade & Economic Planning

3

FINANCIAL

11

Depository Corporations Survey

Central Bank of Seychelles

12

Central Bank Survey

Central Bank of Seychelles

13

Interest Rate

Central Bank of Seychelles

14

Stock Market

Trop-X Stock Exchange- Seychelles

4

EXTERNAL

15

Balance of Payments

Central Bank of Seychelles

16

Official Reserves Assets

Central Bank of Seychelles

17

Template on International Reserves and Foreign Currency Liquidity

Central Bank of Seychelles

18

Merchandise Trade

Central Bank of Seychelles / NBS

19

International Investment Position

Central Bank of Seychelles

20

External Debt

Central Bank of Seychelles

21

Exchange rate

Central Bank of Seychelles

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About the Bureau

In July 2010, the legal framework of the Bureau was recast and modernized and the National Statistics Bureau Act, 2005, was repealed to be replaced by the National Bureau of Statistics Act, 2010. The institution is now the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and is headed by a Chief Executive Officer.